Tying Ties
by Orange Lights
Summary: Yukari becomes a practise dummy for Minamo's tie tying abilities. Not really fluff.


**A/N: **This is a reference to the episode where they are at the Summer house for the 2nd time, and Yukari says Minamo can do up a tie and used her as practise when they were younger. (The same episode where they admit they don't know how to do up a Yukata) I think after that Yukari says something about there being a reason that Minamo wanted to tie up a tie, and Minamo remembers and they bicker for a bit. ;) This is probably _not _what they had in mind, but I had to write it anyway, even if it isn't the best thing I've ever written, lol.

* * *

Tying Ties

The English oral exam was tough. Too tough. Yukari thought that maybe she could impress the examiners with her outstanding beauty instead of last minute cramming, and while she did indeed look absolutely stunning if she said so herself, with a smart white blouse and black pencil skirt, she might have forgotten a few things or two. Or maybe a bit more than two...

_It doesn't matter! It doesn't matter! _

She grinned to herself, but she wasn't fooling anyone. There was a reason that she wasn't going home and was going to Minamo's flat instead. (How she could afford to live by herself being the poor college student that she was, Yukari didn't know.) She didn't think she would be able to cope looking at the questioning eager faces of her parents when they asked how it went.

"Nyamo! Nyamo!" Yukari called out from behind the door, holding her finger down on the doorbell so that a constant drill of _'ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-dong'_ filled the air, "Ny~aaamo!"

"Coming!" Minamo's muffled voice returned, and Yukari waited as she heard a _'thump-thump-thump' _of footsteps rushing to open the door.

"How did your exam go?" Minamo asked eagerly. Minamo was wearing the usual grungy navy coloured jogging bottoms paired with an old green sports t-shirt. This annoyed Yukari even more, how dare she act like she cared, when all she had been doing was dossing all day!

"Don't bother me with such things!" She snapped, pushing past her to lie down on her futon, "It's over now, and that's all that matters!"

"That bad, huh." Minamo shut the door quietly, returning back to where she had been sitting on the floor, crossing her legs as she watched Yukari in exasperation, "Why is it whenever you come here, you always want to sleep?"

"I've just been through a lot of mental stress, I'm sorry if this is unfamiliar to a stupid gym student - "

Yukari was rewarded for this by having a book thrown at her, and decided that it was time to get up, grumbling as she rubbed the side of her head.

"Ow. You're so mean to me sometimes, Nyamo."

"Me?!"

The two bickered for a bit, until it got to the point where Yukari thought she was losing – (why she was, she didn't know. She never lost against Nyamo! It must have been all that mental stress.) - and noticed a strip of red fabric hanging up on the door handle behind Minamo's head.

"Eh? What's that?"

"Hm?" Minamo turned around and followed her gaze, and suddenly went red with embarrassment. "Oh! Nothing..." She got up and made to hide whatever the thing was, but Yukari's keen senses beat her to it, as she rugby tackled her to the floor, outstretching her arm to pull the thing down.

"No!" Minamo cried out, struggling to get up from underneath Yukari, and when she couldn't, attempted to grab her by the arm instead, but Yukari stretched and stretched some more, "Must reach, must reaach!"

She caught the slip of fabric between her fingers and triumphantly pulled it out, pushing herself to her feet and holding it above her head like a banner in a victory pose.

"Oh yeah, oh yeah, I got it I got it!" She said, flicking it behind her shoulder to give Minamo the peace sign. Minamo simply lay there, looking up in defeat with a small sigh.

"What is it anyway?" Yukari flicked it back to her, and then clicked, "Oh! It's a tie! Oh – OH!" Yukari grinned as she figured it out, "Nyamo, you didn't tell me you had a boyfriend!"

"That's because I don't have a boyfriend." Minamo said.

"Ehh?" Yukari stretched out the tie in both hands, before letting it droop, looking back at the woman who was now standing up, leaning back on the wall behind her, "Well, why else would you have a tie?"

"I... wanted to test something out, but I don't know how to do up a tie, so..."

Yukari burst into gales of laughter, "You – you don't know how to tie up a tie?" She said gleefully, "You really don't know?"

Instead of giving a sarcastic response, Minamo let her have her laugh for a change, which continued for a long few minutes. In the end, feeling thoroughly irritated as Yukari showed no signs of stopping she snapped.

"Why? Do you know how to tie up a tie?"

There was an abrupt stop, as Yukari held up one finger, mouth wide open. She closed her eyes, crossed her arms, held the pose for an agonizing long time, before opening her eyes and held up a finger again. Minamo knew from this that she _also _didn't know how to tie up a tie, and waited as she crossed her arms again, and uncrossed them.

"You start with it like this." She said with a genuine seriousness, wrapping the tie around Minamo's neck. Minamo waited for a few moments for Yukari to continue, until it hit her that she wasn't going to.

"Of course you start it like that, idiot!" Minamo growled, pulling the tie off of her neck and whipping her with it a few times. Yukari yelped and dove back into the futon, trying to get cover from the blows by shielding herself with a blanket.

After they had both calmed down, Yukari stood up with her arms crossed, muttering how annoying she was. Minamo smiled suddenly as she reached out for Yukari's neck.

"You have a blouse on!" She observed, fiddling with the collar.

"Yes. And."

"I can practise on you!"

"Only if you tell me what you wanted to test out."

"Oh, sure, sure," Minamo waved off, pulling Yukari's collar up and sweeping the tie around, straightening it out so the length was even, "Right..."

They both stood there in silence, Minamo holding the tie up slightly by either end, Yukari slouching in her stance. Yukari aimlessly listened to the sound of cars honking each other outside, while there was a look of deep concentration on Minamo's face as she tried to remember how to do it.

"I think you have one bit longer than the other..."

She pulled the chunky part of the tie down a bit so it was longer than the thinner part, and paused, keeping both bits in her hand. There was an even longer stretch of silence, which Yukari decided to break.

"It must be hard to have the brain of a gym student."

"Shut up!" Minamo said, dropping the fabric so it flapped against Yukari's chest, "Fine! Fine! We won't do it. Just go home and tell your parents how you did on your English exam!"

Yukari watched Minamo's face for a bit and then held up both ends of the tie for Minamo to pick up.

Minamo knew she had to cross one part over the other, and it made logical sense for the chunky part to go on top of the thinner part. She folded it over and waited for inspiration to strike. This time it failed her, and without any clue what she was doing, wrapped it around a few times before pulling it through one of the holes. She leaned back and looked at her work, an unsmiling Yukari looking back at her.

"That's not right." Minamo mused. The long thin bit had somehow managed to come on top and Yukari pulled a little at it, to which it smoothly fell apart.

She blindly tried again and again for around ten minutes, and Yukari's short attention span overcome her curiosity on why Minamo would want to tie a tie.

"Why don't you look it up on the internet? Everything is on the internet."

"Hmm. I don't know, I want to figure it out..."

A few moments later, they ended up looking it up on the internet. Minamo scrolled through the sites, apparently it was a big issue that many people had problems with, and felt a bit better that she couldn't do it. (There was no consolation if Yukari couldn't do it.)

"Ooh! Do this one, it has photo diagrams!" Yukari pointed out, the tie draping down onto the keyboard. Minamo clicked onto it, and began to follow the instructions.

"It seems really simple now." Minamo said half-heartedly as she threaded the tie through, pulling it out so it looked how the final part looked in the photo, "Look, look, I've done it!"

"Where?" Yukari said, looking down at her chest, "Oh, wait I'm going to look in your mirror..."

Minamo turned off her computer as Yukari wandered into the bathroom, smirking at her when she came back.

"I look so professional in this! Maybe I should have worn a tie to my English oral!"

"It wouldn't have helped."

"You don't know that," Yukari retorted, "Oh! Tell me, tell me, what was you going to do with the tie?"

Minamo stepped closer to Yukari, aimlessly pulling at the tie as if there were a load of minuscule creases. She pulled on it a little harder so that Yukari had to step forward, tripping a little ungracefully as she did so, and grabbed hold of Minamo's shoulder to regain her balance, looking at the floor to steady herself.

"Nyamo... wha - " Yukari started as she tilted her head up to look at her, but stopped as there was something about Minamo's nervous expression that had taken off guard. Minamo's eyes darted around her face, looking at one eye then the other, before she tugged on the tie a little more so that their faces were a few inches apart.

It hit Yukari on what Minamo was going to do, but she found herself unable to pull away as Minamo tilted her head down, shutting her eyes as she closed in for a kiss. Somehow Yukari's head had turned up the right way, for the first time her mind had gone blank which was so out of character for her, but all she could concentrate on was the fact that Minamo's - _Nyamo's _lips were on hers, that they were kissing, what was going on - ?

Minamo must have been thinking the same thing, as she suddenly jumped away as if she had been electrocuted when Yukari responded to the kiss, somehow it seemed like she hadn't expected that to happen. She froze, staring at Yukari who was quickly trying to recover, still limply holding the end of a tie in her fingertips.

"Was that what you were going to do?" Yukari coughed to hide her embarrassment and then after a pause she smiled in a way that was trying to conceal a laugh, "Nyamo, did you see that on a movie or something? That's outrageous for someone like you!"

"Wh-what do you mean, outrageous! I could get away with it!" Minamo argued, blushing furiously as she yanked the tie down so Yukari nearly choked, "Geez! There's nothing wrong with it!"

The spell had quickly been broken, and Yukari happily returned to the usual banter that they would have together, trying not to think too much into what had happened. A thought occurred to her in a stroke of brilliance as she clapped her hands together with an evil grin.

"There's no way I'm going to forget this..."

"Don't say something so stupid! You're going to forget this happened right now!"

"I bet you even bought the tie yourself..."

"Shut up!"


End file.
